Tag: australia

Wild Oz

gr4c5Leave a comment

Clodd, Geoff. Wild Oz: Hilariously Unfiltered Backpacking Stories. Independently Published, 2025.

Reason read: this is a selection from LibraryThing’s Early Review program.

I do not know exactly what I was expecting from Wild Oz but this turned out to be a much different adventure. I think the subtitle about backpacking made me think he would be roughing it a little more than he did in his Oz adventures. I also thought there would be more variation to his escapades, especially through Thailand. Australia was just a string of towns where Clodd got this drunk and banged that chick. His stories start and stop without fanfare. Like a giggling kid farting for attention Clodd will tell you about crashing his moped in Thailand or trying to eat a dozen ice cream cones. The year is 2008 and he has decided to travel with a friend to Australia and Thailand for a year or more.
As an aside, Clodd interrupts himself from time to time to tell Vegas stories. That makes sense because he sustained his meager financial existence on internet gambling. I have to admit the prostitute stealing a plate was pretty funny.
Sometimes I thought Wild Oz was written by a horny fourteen year old left alone in the house without his parents for the very first time. His command of slang was pretty extensive (“suck on that!”). Chasing temporary employment and bedding various women while juggling excessive drinking and drugging, Clodd was finicky about dirty hands and paranoid about skin cancer and going bald. I think I just summed up the entire book in this last paragraph.

Fun fact: my husband and I have this game during horror movie season where we try to count the dead bodies. Exactly how many people were murdered during Nightmare on Elm Street? Sometimes we turn it into a drinking game – a swig for every time someone dies. We should take turns reading Wild Oz aloud and take a glug every time Clodd has sex with a different woman. That could be fun.

As an aside, I want to know how often Geoff has had to say “two fs and two ds” when telling someone how to spell his name.

Book trivia: Clodd makes pop references that some people may or may not get. For example, I didn’t know who Screech and Zack were.

Author fact: Wild Oz is Clodd’s first and only book on LibraryThing.

Playlist: “Let’s Get It Started” by Black Eyed Peas, Creed, Outkast, “Rape Me” by Nirvana, Janet Jackson, and Wolfmother (which I have on my run playlist).

Thorn Birds

gr4c5Leave a comment

McCullough, Colleen. The Thorn Birds. Harper and Row, 1977.

Reason read: There is a festival in China called the Ching Ming festival that takes place every April. Read in honor of China. Except. There is nothing about China in this book.

Confessional: I have wanted to read this book for years. My grandmother gave it to my mother and father when it was first published and it has been on their bookshelf forever and ever (since 1977). Only recently was I able to steal their copy to read it for myself. I promise to bring it back, mom!
Seven chapters. Seven different characters from 1915 to 1969. One small compliant: the chapter called “Dane” was not from Dane’s perspective. He was barely in it, which was a disappointment because I wanted to get to know him better. Having said that, The Thorn Birds will give you an intimate portrait of the rest of the Cleary/O’Neill family over the course of fifty plus years. It all starts when Paddy Cleary’s sister invites him and his family to work on her farm with the promise of inheriting the sprawling plantation after her death. Paddy bundles up his wife and seven kids to for the Australian Outback. There they learn to love the land, if not each other.
My favorite part of The Thorn Birds wasn’t the plot. It was the characters; each one fully realized. McCullough was right to name her chapters after them. Mary Elizabeth Carson was a diabolical woman I truly adored. She knew the nature of greed. She knew the pitfalls of love. What if greed was to be pitted against love in a fierce battle? Out of jealousy, she decided to find out. Her actions after her death set in motion a chain of events that would ultimately alter the course of history for generations to come.

Confessional: I am currently reading The Thorn Birds alongside Glittering Images and Beyond Belief. It is a bit much to be reading three very religious books at the same time. While theology is a strong theme for two of them, they are all completely different.

Book trivia: No quoting from this book in any manner whatsoever. Whatever. I know that The Thorn Birds was also made into a movie starring Richard Chamberlain and Rachel Ward. Guess what? I never saw it.

Author fact: Coleen McCullough also wrote a series about Caesar which is on my list.

As an aside, is there really such a bird that impales itself on a thorn?

Music: “Faith of Our Fathers”.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust from the chapter called “Hong Kong Holidays” (p 118). The only reason why Thorn Birds was even mentioned in More Book Lust is because of John Lanchester’s Fragrant Harbor. Interestingly enough, The Thorn Birds did not make it into the index of More Book Lust. Author Colleen McCullough also did not make it into the index. Woops. Technically, I did not need to read this book, but I am glad that I did.

Fortunate Life

gr4c5Leave a comment

Facey, A.B. A Fortunate Life. Viking, 1981.

Reason read: we celebrate Veteran’s Day on November 11th. I wanted to celebrate Bert Facey as a veteran of World War I by reading his autobiography.

Facey’s autobiography is broken out into six different parts starting in 1884 and ending in 1976. His life started in tragedy when his father died when he was two years old. He and his siblings were sent to live with their grandparents but their grandfather passed just two years later. Facey’s grandmother tried to keep the family together, but by the time Facey was nine, he was farmed out to another family where he was told lies and horrible abused to the point of near death. By the time he was thirteen, Facey had lived with three different families, each just as terrible as the one before. A year later, he started to learn how to read while helping a cattle rancher move his livestock to a different region of Western Australia. Every time, Facey proved to be a hard worker who could learn new skills quickly. Early in his teenaged years, Facey learned these traits were keen survival skills. Knowing how to judge a character was also important to him and saved his life several times over, including when dealing with his money-hungry and manipulative mother or the time he had to fistfight a man three times his size.
True to the memories of the elderly, Facey could recall his childhood clearly and focused more detail on these formative years. His time spent as a boxer, soldier, and employee of a tram company are not as detailed or drawn out. Even his days as a union man and political leader are not given the same attention. His marriage and subsequent fatherhood of eight children are not given a great deal of narrative, either. However, it is interesting to note his remarkable relationship with his wife, Evelyn. As a complete stranger, she sent him socks during his military deployment in Gallipoli. When they met years later, they court, marry, and go on to have several children. Evelyn was his first and only love and they were married for nearly sixty years. Facey ends his autobiography after the event of her death.

Quotes of character, “…I never asked him anything of his business because if he wished to tell me, he would” (p 190) and “A sort of love and trust in one another developed in the trenches” (p 281).

Author fact: Facey lived for nine months after publication of A Fortunate Life. I hope that he was proud of his achievements.

Book trivia: the majority of illustrations in A Fortunate Life are advertisements for products like velvet soap, Oh Boy Brand flour, Mills and Ware biscuits, Amgoorie tea, Hugh Nichols’ suits, Trewhella’s Monkey Grubber (whatever that is), A.W. Barlow Shoe Company, and Colemane & Sons eucalyptus oil. I could go on and on.
A Fortunate Life was made into a television miniseries and there is a short YouTube video about A.B. Facey’s life, as well.

Music: “Son of the Sea”.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the obvious chapter called “Australia: the Land of Oz (nonfiction)” (p 26).

Chasing Kangaroos

gr4c5Leave a comment

Flannery, Tim. Chasing Kangaroos: a continent, a scientist, and a search for the world’s most extraordinary creature. Grove Press, 2004.

Reason read: I have no idea why.

Why do kangaroos hop? It sounds like the start to a marsupial joke. Tim Flannery wants to tell you the punch line. Chasing Kangaroos is a fun exploration into the evolution of kangaroos all the way up to the extinction of Australia’s megaflora. Flannery will explain the journey of kangaroos across the planet as Europeans brought them to places like London and Hawaii. Royalty wanted them as exotic pets to roam their palace grounds. Flannery’s style of explanation makes every kangaroo-related subject matter interesting and entertaining. I found myself pondering facts like the footbones of animals, kangaroo chromosomes, why some kangaroos do not hop, why some kangaroos live in trees, and how they are related to the possum. I know more about the male anatomy of a kangaroo than I ever wanted to know. For male readers, heads up. Flannery will urge you to trace your own male anatomy for evidence of ancestral evolution of the scrotum before the penis. You’re welcome.
At the end of Chasing Kangaroos Flannery ends on a hopeful note, speculating that some species previously thought extinct might actually still be around.

As an aside, I had to laugh at the mention of a mass spectrometer. I know what one looks like and how it functions, thanks to watching a true crime science show. I also know that some carpets are trilobal in nature, but that is neither here nor there.

Author fact: Everyone mentions The Weather Makers (Flannery’s landmark bestseller), but I am reading Thowim’ Way Leg and The Explorers.

Book trivia: Chasing Kangaroos has a gorgeous section of color photographs of quokka, wallaby, euro, bettong, and of course kangaroos. The author makes it into a few photographs as well.

Setlist: “Ave Maria”, “O Sole Mio”, “Back to Sorrento”, Tina Turner’s “Simply the Best”, Al Jolson, “My Mammy”, and “The Old at Home”.

Nancy said: Pearl said that Chasing Kangaroos was one that she enjoyed the most.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the obvious chapter called “Australia, the Land of Oz (Nonfiction) (p 26).

Oscar and Lucinda

gr4c5Leave a comment

Carey, Peter. Oscar and Lucinda. Harper and Row, 1988.

Reason read: in honor of National Writing Month, I chose a Booker Prize winner. In truth, the Portland Public Library Reading Challenge also had the category of Booker Prize.

Confessional: I felt no affinity for the timid boy with flaming red hair who was afraid of everything. I felt no affinity for the wealthy heiress with the gambling problem. To be honest, I felt no affinity for Oscar and Lucinda the couple or the novel. It dragged on and on. For the most part, I found it was a tirade about the human condition.
As an aside, there are strange details all throughout Oscar and Lucinda. Even though I was bored most of the time, I still am curious about the significance and role of cauliflower to Lucinda when she was on the boat.

Quotes to quote, “The smile did what the Irish accent never could have” (p 121) and “She could marry this man, she knew, and she would still be captain of her soul” (p 329

Author fact: At the time of publication (1988) Carey lived in Australia.

Book trivia: Oscar and Lucinda won the Booker Prize. I have mentioned that before.

Playlist: “The Wearing of the Green”.

Nancy said: Pearl called Oscar and Lucinda “notable” and “Victorian”.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust twice. First, in “A Dickens of a Tale”. I don’t agree. Yes, Oscar and Lucinda is Victorian (19th century Australia), but it is Jack Maggs that is a Dickens reinterpretation. Oscar and Lucinda is also in the chapter called “Australian Fiction” (p 29). No argument there as the story takes place in Australia.

Gunshot Road

gr4c5Leave a comment

Hyland, Adrian. Gunshot Road. New York: Soho Press, 2010.

Reason read: to continue the series started in January in honor of I have no idea what. I continue to have no idea.

In the last Emily Tempest installment, Emily had just returned to the Outback. When we catch up to her in Gunshot Road, she has settled in as a Aboriginal Community Police Officer (ACPO) for the Bluebush police department. Only half the uniform fits her and she is “allergic to authority.” Add her temperament as a hothead, not afraid of authority and you can imagine why the job isn’t sitting with her as comfortably as she (and others) would like. To top it off, her superior is a by-the-book replacement by the name of Bruce Cockburn. Cockburn is filling in for Emily’s old friend, Tom MacGillivray while Tom is hospitalized. Unfortunately, Bruce doesn’t get Emily at all. All the barriers are there; the biggest being gender. As a female investigator she isn’t taken seriously. Being biracial doesn’t help either. Her very first case is a murder investigation at the Green Swamp Well Roadhouse and she has very little support during the investigation. Par for the course, someone is covering up something much bigger.
As an aside, Emily is someone I could kick back with and enjoy a beer. I admire her smart, funny, and courageous attitude. I do not, however, believe she could fire a shotgun with her big toe while wrestling, with her hands tied, with a 200lb+ brute. As you can probably tell, there is a lot of violence in Hyland novels.
Best part of Gunshot Road: Emily’s best friend, Hazel, and boyfriend, Jojo, are back. Yes!

Quote to quote, “Rage and shame, deaf to reason, swept through me in storms that tore aware the flimsy tarps lashed above my soul” (p 241 – 242).

As another aside, I was bothered by the cruelty towards animals in both Hyland books. It seems as if the citizens of the Aboriginal bush like to take their revenge out on dogs. A dog in Moonlight Downs was punched a killing blow because it bit a trespasser. This time, in Gunshot Road, a dog was beaten with a hammer. I’m more of a cat person but geeze!

Author fact: I wish I was reading Hyland’s nonfiction, Kinglake-350. It won a few awards. As of Gunshot Road, I am officially done with this author.

Book trivia: the one thing I remember commenting on before is Hyland’s use of music in his books. Almost right away in Gunshot Road he quoted “Mother and Child Reunion.” He also introduced me to the Pigram Brothers, a band of seven brothers from Broome, WA in Australia. Coral Cowboys, Cold Chisel, and Buffalo Express are others.

Nancy said: Gunshot Road was included in the list of Australian fiction that shouldn’t be missed.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Australia, the Land of Oz: Fiction” (p 26).

March Same As It Ever Was

gr4c5Leave a comment

This March will mark my eighth time running the St. Patrick’s Day Road Race. When I lived in town I would watch the runners race by, seemingly effortlessly. I could spy on them from my third floor apartment; while I sipped coffee I wondered what it would be like to able to run six miles knowing believing I couldn’t run a single one. Look at me now, Dad.

Here are the books I’m reading for the month of March:

Fiction:

  • Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear – in honor of International Women’s month and to check off a category from the Portland Public Library Reading Challenge list (a cozy mystery).
  • Miss Mole by E.H. Young – in honor of Young’s birth month.
  • The Calligrapher by Edward Docx – in honor of March is Action Hero month.
  • On the Night Plain by J. Robert Lennon – in honor of Yellowstone National Park.
  • Pandora’s Star by Peter Hamilton – in honor of sci-fi month.

Nonfiction:

  • All Elevations Unknown: an Adventure into the Heart of Borneo by Sam Lightner, Jr. – in honor of the first time Mount Kinabu was ascended (March 1851).
  • Baghdad without a Map and Other Misadventures in Arabia by Tony Horwitz – in memory of the March 2003 bombing of Baghdad.

Series Continuations:

  • Gunshot Road by Adrian Hyland – to continue the series started in January in honor something I can’t remember.

Early Review for LibraryThing:

  • The 21: A Journey into the Land of the Coptic Martyrs by Martin Mosebach (started in February).

January Jinxed

gr4c5Leave a comment

January is a month of great indecision. I can’t decide if I want to say more…
If there is one thing I can say for the January books, it is that most all of the fiction made mention of great music. Some musicians I knew, some I didn’t. Some songs I knew, some I didn’t. I had fun looking it all up though.

Fiction:

  • Sanctuary by Ken Bruen (EB & print). Music: Philip Fogarty, Anne Lardi, Rolling Stones, Snow Patrol, Johnny Duhan.
  • The Farming of Bones by Edwidge Danticat (EB & print).
  • Moonlight Downs by Adrian Hyland (EB & print). Music: Lucinda Williams, Slim Dusty, Nick Cave, The Warumpi Band, Ry Cooder.
  • The Catastrophist by Ronan Bennett (EB & print). Music: Charles Tenet.
  • Graced Land by Laura Kalpakian (EB & print). Music: Elvis, Elvis, and more Elvis.
  • The Beijing of Possibilities by Jonathan Tel (print). Music: Leonard Cohen, Beethoven, and the fictional heavy metal band, Panda Bear Soup.
  • The Passage to India by E.M. Forster (EB & print).

Nonfiction:

  • Barcardi and the Long Fight for Cuba by Tom Gjelten (EB & print).

Series continuations:

  • Master of Hestviken: the Son Avenger by Sigrid Undset (EB & print).
  • The Persuader by Lee Child (EB & AB).

Early Review for LibraryThing:

  • Fine, Thanks by Mary Dunnewold (EB). Music: Ella Fitzgerald, Dave Brubeck, Mose Allison, Talking Heads, Aaron Copeland (can you tell, Dunnewold really likes music!).

Moonlight Downs

gr4c5Leave a comment

Hyland, Adrian. Moonlight Downs. New York: Soho Press, 2008.

Reason read: Believe it or not, I have no idea why I started reading this in January.

Emily Tempest is finally home after a long twelve-year absence. Half white and half Aboriginal, she must relearn her place in the landscape; to re-establish old relationships with the community and people she used to love. But, at the same time she is a pesky armchair detective, always poking her nose where it shouldn’t be. When a beloved member of the Moonlight Downs mob is murdered, Emily goes on the hunt to find his killer. It’s personal because Emily has an extra special relationship with the victim’s daughter.
Confessional: all throughout the book, when Emily was fearing for her life I thought it was an exaggeration until a few more people die. The amount of violence towards the end of the book was surprising.
Another confessional: you will appreciate Hyland’s glossary of Aboriginal words in the beginning of the book.

As an aside, I love it when there are little tiny overlaps in my books. I am reading about the Bacardi family in Cuba in another book. In Moonlight Downs a Cuban shows up in Australia.

Confessional: I kept a running list of all the characters I met in Moonlight Downs.

Best and only quote of the book, “As the fury subsided it made room for questions” (p 142).

Author fact: Hyland has lived and worked among the Indigenous people of Australia.

Book trivia: Moonlight Downs is the first Emily Tempest mystery in the series. It was published as Diamond Dove in Australia. As an aside, I am also reading Gunshot Road for the Challenge.

Nancy said: Pearl included Moonlight Downs in a list of more Australian fiction that “absolutely shouldn’t be missed” (Book Lust To Go p 30).

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Australia, the Land of Oz: Fiction” (p 29).

September Psycho

gr4c5Leave a comment

I don’t even know where to begin with September. It was the month from hell in more ways than one. The only good news is that I was able to run twice as many miles as last month. That counts for something as it saves my sanity just a little bit more than if I didn’t do anything at all.

Here are the books:

Fiction:

  • In the City of Fear by Ward Just
  • Jim, The Boy by Tony Earley
  • The Shining by Stephen King

Nonfiction:

  • Thank You and OK! by David Chadwick
  • Foreign Correspondence by Geraldine Brooks
  • Ayatollah Begs to Differ by Madj Hoomin
  • Agony and Ecstasy by Irving Stone

Series continuations:

  • Tripwire by Lee Child
  • Foundation and Earth by Isaac Asimov

Early Review for LibraryThing:

  • My Life on the Line by Ryan O’Callaghan

Foreign Correspondence

gr4c5Leave a comment

Brooks, Geraldine. Foreign Correspondence: a Pen Pal’s Journey From Down Under to All Over. Thorndike, Maine: Thorndike Press, 1998.

Reason read: International Reading Day is on September 8th.

Brooks started writing to pen pals when she was ten years old. [As an aside, I think I was around the same age when I formed my letter-writing habit.] Finding all of Brooks’s pen pal letters prompted her to wonder if she could find their authors some thirty some odd years later. Where were these forty-something year olds? Who were they now as adults and what lives were they living? Before she launches on her journey to find lost relations, Brooks spends some time remembering her own childhood and how each pen pal played a part in it. As a kid she yearned to get away from boring Australia with its lack of culture and panache. As a good girl, she recalls her fear of her father’s lack of participation in Catholic worship and how it might send him to hell and yet she herself wanted to be a rebel; “to kiss boys, take drugs, be hauled by the hair into a police van at an antiwar protest” (p 78). She remembers wanting to expand her religious horizons with the letters she would write and receive. Those pen pals would bring Brooks full circle by reminding her of her roots and just how far she has come as an adult.

Quote I liked, “We have grown older together, trapped in the aspic of our age gap” (p 59) and “It’s unfortunate to arrive at an Arab summit in Casablanca only to find that your underwear is touring sub-Saharan Africa without you” (p 142).

Author fact: According to Brooks’s memoir, she had a budding acting career early in life.

Book trivia: Brooks includes touching photographs of her family as well as the pen pals who shaped her life.

Nancy said: Pearl mentioned an interview with Brooks. I had to ask the Seattle Channel if they could rerelease the video because it was over ten years old. I am happy to say they consented and even though the interview didn’t mention Foreign Correspondence I enjoyed it very much. As an aside, the interview focused on People of the Book (not on my list).

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Australia, the Land of Oz” (p 26).

Month for Women

gr4c5Leave a comment

I definitely didn’t do this on purpose because I never structure my reading this way, but January turned out to be a month of mostly woman authors (notated with a ‘w’). I am including the books I started in January but have not finished. Because they are not Challenge books they do not need to be finished in the same month. And. And! And, I have started running again. After a six month hiatus, I think I am back! Sort of.

Fiction:

  • A Cold-Blooded Business by Dana Stabenow (w & EB)
  • The Beekeeper’s Apprentice by Laurie R. King (w & AB)
  • Firewatch by Connie Willis (w & EB)
  • The Good Times are Killing Me by Lynda Barry (w)
  • Lamb in Love by Carrie Brown (w & EB)
  • Foundation by Isaac Asimov (AB)
  • Take This Man by Frederick Busch
  • ADDED: The Renunciation by Edgardo Rodriguez Julia

Nonfiction:

  • Daisy Bates in the Desert by Julia Blackburn (w)
  • The Sibley Guide to Bird Life and Behavior edited by Chris Elphick, John Dunning & David Allen Sibley
  • The Turk by Tom Standage
  • ADDED: Freedom in Meditation by Patricia Carrington (w)

Series continuations:

  • Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman
  • To Lie with Lions by Dorothy Dunnett (w)

Early Review Program for LibraryThing:

  • Well-Read Black Girl by Glory Edim (w)
  • How to be a Patient by Sana Goldberg (w) – not finished yet

For Fun:

  • Sharp by Michelle Dean (w) – not finished yet
  • Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver (w) – not finished yet

Daisy Bates in the Desert

gr4c5Leave a comment

Blackburn, Julia. Daisy Bates in the Desert: A Woman’s Life Among the Aborigines. New York: Vintage Departures, 1995.

Reason read: Australia Day is January 26th.

Julia Blackburn became fascinated by Daisy Bates quite by accident. In the beginning of her book Blackburn imagines Ms. Bates’s feelings and memories but by the middle of the book there is an odd shift in perspective and suddenly Blackburn assumes the role of Bates, talking in the first person as if she IS Daisy Bates. It was a little unsettling until I settled into the narrative…and then she switches back.
Through Blackburn’s words Daisy Bates became this larger than life figure; a woman trying to save the natives of Australia. At times it was difficult for me to understand her motives or her successes, but I learned to understand her passions. She truly cared for the people of the desert. 

Line I had to quote, “I suppose it would have been awkward to pack and easily broken and anyway the skull of a good friend would not provide much comfort when one was feeling lonely” (p 95). On a personal note, when my first cat was ailing I seriously considered taking her to a taxidermist for eternal preservation. I loved her that much.
Another line I liked, “The sky was breathing; I could feel the cavity of the night expanding and contracting around me as if I was in the belly of the universe” (p 122). I feel that way about Monhegan sometimes.

As an aside, I am not sure what to do with the image of naked women with dingo puppies tied about their waists.

Author fact: Blackburn wrote several books which won awards. The most successful were Thin Paths and The Leper’s Companions. Neither are on my Challenge list.

Book trivia: Disappointingly there are not a lot of pictures of Daisy Bates. The best one is of her on a swing.

Nancy said: Pearl called Daisy Bates in the Desert “fabulous” (Book Lust To Go p 28)

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Australia, the Land of Oz” (p 26).

January Come Lately

gr4c5Leave a comment

I try not to think about white rabbits running around with time pieces muttering about being late. Whenever I do I am reminded this is being written three days behind schedule. Nevertheless, here are the books:

Fiction:

  • Foundation by Isaac Asimov – in honor of Asimov’s birth month.
  • Lamb in Love by Carrie Brown – this is a stretch…All Creatures Great and Small first aired as a television show in January and there is a creature in the title.
  • The Good Times are Killing Me by Lynda Barry – in honor of Barry’s birth month.
  • A Cold Blooded Business by Dana Stabenow – in honor of Alaska becoming a state in January.

Nonfiction:

  • Daisy Bates in the Desert by Julia Blackburn – in honor of Australia’s National Day on January 26th.
  • The Turk by Tom Standage in honor of Wolfgang Von Klempelen’s birth month.
  • Freedom in Meditation by Patricia Carrington – in honor of January being National Yoga month.
  • Sibley’s Guide to Bird Life and Behavior by David Allen Sibley – in honor of Adopt a Bird Month. I read that somewhere…

Series continuations:

  • To Lie with Lions by Dorothy Dunnett – to continue the series started in August in honor of Dunnett’s birth month.
  • Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman – to continue the series started in November in honor of National Writing Month (Fantasy).

Early Review for LibraryThing:

  • Well-Read Black Girl by Glory Edim – I know what you are thinking. I am neither black nor a girl. I am a middle-aged white woman who barely remembers being a girl. I requested this book because I work in an extremely diverse environment and let’s face it, I want to be known as well-read, regardless of color.

For fun:

  • Sharp by Michelle Dean – my sister gave this to me as a Christmas gift. I wonder if she is trying to tell me something.

Pearl Cove

gr4c5Leave a comment

Lowell, Elizabeth. Pearl Cove. New York: Harper Collins, 1999.

Reason read: to continue the series started in honor of Lowell’s birth month in April.

So the Donovan saga continues. If you haven’t guessed by now, the series focuses on one member of the Donovan clan at a time. The last book, Jade Island, introduced Kyle Donovan. In Pearl Cove it’s older brother Archer Donovan’s turn to take the spotlight. He has been called to the rescue of Australian Hannah McGarry for personal and professional reasons.
The back story: Hannah’s husband, Len, has just been found murdered with an oyster shell buried in his chest. The oyster shell is symbolic as Hannah and Len ran a business cultivating pearls. Before his death, Len had developed a technique of producing a unique rainbow black pearl. His process was so secret that not even Hannah knew how it was done.  Now a whole necklace of these rare pearls has gone missing. With Len dead and the pearl farm on the brink of bankruptcy, Hannah is in danger. She could lose the farm and her life if she doesn’t convince ruthless competitors that she doesn’t know the secret process to producing perfect black pearls. She is forced call in favor and ask for help from Len’s silent partner, Archer Donovan.

Two quotes I liked, “But a man who stopped asking questions never learned anything new” (p 14), and “Rage chased in the wake of pain, caught it, raced neck and neck in a headlong run towards destruction” (p 213).

Author fact: Lowell has written over fifty books.

Nancy said: Pearl Cove is an “action-suspense” romance novel.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Romance Novels: Our Love is Here to Stay” (p 203).